Pension Committees and Pension Boards in the LGPS have a significant responsibility. Acquiring, developing and maintaining a good level of knowledge is key to carrying out their role effectively and ensuring the successful running of their fund. The push for higher levels of knowledge and understanding in LGPS Committees and Pension Boards has two fundamental aims –

1. Informed decision making
2. Informed scrutiny

You can now download the results from the first ever LGPS National Knowledge Assessment.

The goal of the National Knowledge Assessment (NKA) is to present participating LGPS funds with an insight into the level of knowledge of their Committee and Pension Board members, both individually and as collective groups. 

Below is a quick snapshot of our key findings:

• Traditional topics are still dominating - there are higher levels of knowledge in the traditional Committee and Pension Board topics of Investment and Financial Markets and lower knowledge levels on topics such as Administration and Actuarial Methods, Standards and Processes. 
• Training engagement will come from varied and topical training subjects – respondents suggested that they would like more frequent training across a wide range of subjects.
• There are different knowledge levels at funds but crucially a good spread of knowledge – funds did find a fluctuation in knowledge levels of participants - as they may have expected. Crucially though, there is a good spread of knowledge on most topics which allows funds to evidence that appropriate challenge and decision making exists at their fund.

What should funds do next?

1. Ensure they have assessed the current knowledge levels of their Committee and Pension Board
2. Use the results to identify weaker areas of knowledge
3. Produce a training plan to improve on these areas and track and record Committee and Pension Board training

The assessment remains open, please get in contact to discuss how your Fund can still take part and tap into the wealth of benchmarking information available.

We hope you find this report insightful. If you would like to discuss any of our findings further, please do get in touch.